Duel Wield Pistols[Idea on how to do it]

[valdosa]

Let me start off by saying, the reason I simply don't make the mod is because I'm horrible with animating(Like, *cry* tis so bad...D: ). So now that we are past that here we go.

 

The entire concept of duel wielding in fallout has had several issues in the past that people just couldn't seem to wrap there mind around, but, I seem to have found a way to counteract almost all of the issues with this, I will be explaining my through process during this thread for a better explanation of how I came to my reasoning.

 

Issue 1: Aiming

 

When I first heard this was an issue I actually wanted to laugh, mainly because the first thing that popped into my head was my M9's back in call of duty, you forgo ironsights for the 2nd gun.

 

Issue 2: Animations

 

This one was hard to bypass, however, after looking around I was able to find a mod that actually held some of the plausible stances. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=43240

 

The images of the right arm holding the pistols would be exactly what the left arm would be doing, essentially being a mirror of the right arm.

 

These animations would have to saved and called upon like the regular pistols, and would require weapons made specifically for this mod. (Because the animation *example : 2handautomatic for assault rifles* tag would have to be set for the duel wield to work correctly)

 

 

Issue 3: Firing

 

Both weapons would be firing at the same target, there won't be any one gun shoots one person and the other shoots someone else.

 

Pulling the trigger, just like any other gun, would cause both of the weapons to fire at the same time, individual control of the pistols is well, yea, not impossible but, stupidly impractical in comparison.

 

Now, you may be thinking, but, if both weapons fire at the same time, they will run out of ammo at the same time! You are correct, however, in the reloading section I fix this issue.

 

Issue 4: Reloading

 

Reloading has for a long time been one of the most pointed at problems with duel wielding however, I believe I've cracked this as well.

 

Reloading again would require a separate animation, which would involve the pistol clip ejecting and then moving the pistol down to the right or left side, clipping the belt, and being reloaded.

 

For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIaBQPhb3FA

 

 

(ignore the modded controller, good thing is it causes him to reload a lot :P)

 

Now, because both weapons go empty at the same time, you are able to "withdraw" double the amount of ammo of the mainhand weapons clip from your inventory.

 

Example:

 

M9 15 round clip.

<Empty>

Withdraw 30 9mm.

M9 reload.

 

Now, the issue with tracking two clips is, the game was never made to do this, however, with the above method a workaround is possible.

 

With the game only tracking the mainhand (right) weapon, we are free to set the offhand (left) weapon to not use ammo, and only play the reload animation when the main hand goes dry. However, again this causes it's own issue, if the offhand doesn't use ammo and you run out of ammo, it will keep shooting.

 

To fix this, the firing of the left hand will have to be reactive to the main hand, if the main hand doesn't fire for any reason, the offhand won't fire either. (It's bound to it.)

 

Issue 5: Equipping a second weapon

 

This is actually really easy to fix.

 

While looking on youtube I stumbled across a jetpack mod. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37140

 

Now your probably are wondering how exactly does a jetpack have anything to do with duel wielding? Well, while reading through his notes, I saw

The jetpack uses the add-on slot 1

Now this popped an idea into my head.

 

If you can bind a jetpack to an area, why can't you bind a weapon to the other hand. After a bit of searching it turns out someone already thought of this, but, instead of a pistol it was bound to a sword.

 

So, the 2nd weapon would then be bound to a addon slot which is assigned to the left hand.

 

Now on to an example.

 

Pistol : M9 Right.

Pistol : M9 Left.

 

When equipping a pistol, a window would pop up containing a list of all Left/Right weapons in your inventory, and you will have to select both a left and right weapon.

 

This way you won't have an empty hand when trying to play the animations.

 

 

Wrap-up

 

You can only duel wield weapons made for duel wielding.

 

Example : M9 Left/M9 Right

 

You can only duel wield weapons with the same clip size/ammunition type.

 

Example : Laser Pistol x 2

 

The reason for the double ammunition tax when reloading is, you are using two guns, even though one doesn't have to have ammo, you still have to reload, even if it's not actually adding bullets to your offhand your still technically firing. (AKA, You don't get free bullets, pay for both weapons clips -.-)

 

 

Comments

 

I'm going back and reading this post and even I'm confused at my own thought process, it's confusing how I came to put this all together.

[Azrael120782]

With the way the game engine is designed,youd have to add totally new animations.None of the current anims could even be used for this. There are a few mods roaming around that did duel wielded weapons with moving clothes but i dont think it was ever released.

[valdosa]

With the way the game engine is designed,youd have to add totally new animations.None of the current anims could even be used for this. There are a few mods roaming around that did duel wielded weapons with moving clothes but i dont think it was ever released.

 

 

...Did you even read my post?

[lachlanfletcher]

Wow. With the amount of effort you put into researching that, good work. I think that someone should definetly do this.

[valdosa]

Wow. With the amount of effort you put into researching that, good work. I think that someone should definetly do this.

 

Aye :P

[TheTalkieToaster]

Wow. With the amount of effort you put into researching that, good work. I think that someone should definetly do this.

Hah, that's pretty unlikely :P. Unfortunately research and proofs don't really get much use unless you do it yourself, from what I've found.

 

There is one other problem that AFAIK was introduced by New Vegas- we used to be able to call FireWeapon with 'embedded weapons' that fired out of skeleton nodes, so for example you could add an 'Off-hand pistol' node to the player's skeleton off the left hand, and use FireWeapon DummyEmbeddedPistol to shoot out of it. WJS mentioned he was having issues trying to fire dummy weapons earlier, so it may be the case that if anything with a ProjectileNode is equipped then all shots come out of the ProjectileNode.

 

Either way though as this post points out there's very little actually stopping us from making dual-wielding weapons, bar the lack of animations which are apparently solved. We can easily fake reloading and ammo management with NVSE, I've done it with a handful of weapons already. The downside is that it can't be done on the fly, would require a crapton of boring work rigging things and making long, boring scripts to handle everything, and would end up with you having to carry around things like '9mm (off-hand)' in inventory, which is a bit clunky. Hence why nobody actually does it.

 

BTW, stuff like the two weapons needing the same ammo type and clip size isn't really an issue, it doesn't take much XML voodoo to toggle a separate HUD item displaying a second ammo count which is just a global variable you manage through a script.

[wolfeman1992]

Ive never done any kind of animation so forgive me if this sounds stupid but to solve the firing/reloading animation problem of the left hand couldnt you just copy the scripting from another game that already has dual weilding? Like crysis that game already has dual weilding so isnt it possible to copy the animation files and with a little tweaking set it up for new vegas?

[Unlimitedrevolver]

 

 

Issue 1: Aiming

 

When I first heard this was an issue I actually wanted to laugh, mainly because the first thing that popped into my head was my M9's back in call of duty, you forgo ironsights for the 2nd gun.

 

 

This could also be solved by making the dual-wielded weapons 1 item, thus allowing you to zoom Fallout 3 style.

Of course you could probably just forget the zooming and make it fire the left weapon.

 

 

Issue 2: Animations

 

This one was hard to bypass, however, after looking around I was able to find a mod that actually held some of the plausible stances. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=43240

 

The images of the right arm holding the pistols would be exactly what the left arm would be doing, essentially being a mirror of the right arm.

 

These animations would have to saved and called upon like the regular pistols, and would require weapons made specifically for this mod. (Because the animation *example : 2handautomatic for assault rifles* tag would have to be set for the duel wield to work correctly)

 

 

AFAIK you can just raise the skeletons arm mesh to match the other, then again I'm not really sure on this stuff.

 

 

Issue 3: Firing

 

Both weapons would be firing at the same target, there won't be any one gun shoots one person and the other shoots someone else.

 

Pulling the trigger, just like any other gun, would cause both of the weapons to fire at the same time, individual control of the pistols is well, yea, not impossible but, stupidly impractical in comparison.

 

Now, you may be thinking, but, if both weapons fire at the same time, they will run out of ammo at the same time! You are correct, however, in the reloading section I fix this issue.

 

 

I'm thinking you could script a new function that switches between firing modes(like both shoot or left then right(vice versa))

As for the ammo, you could probably(if you make it a single weapon) put the combined ammo and make it so that depending on the firing mode it would take a certain amount away.

For example, if you have the "both shoot" mode on it would take up two bullets, and one for the other every time a shot is fired.

 

 

Issue 4: Reloading

 

Reloading has for a long time been one of the most pointed at problems with duel wielding however, I believe I've cracked this as well.

 

Reloading again would require a separate animation, which would involve the pistol clip ejecting and then moving the pistol down to the right or left side, clipping the belt, and being reloaded.

 

For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIaBQPhb3FA

 

 

(ignore the modded controller, good thing is it causes him to reload a lot :P)

 

Now, because both weapons go empty at the same time, you are able to "withdraw" double the amount of ammo of the mainhand weapons clip from your inventory.

 

Example:

 

M9 15 round clip.

<Empty>

Withdraw 30 9mm.

M9 reload.

 

Now, the issue with tracking two clips is, the game was never made to do this, however, with the above method a workaround is possible.

 

With the game only tracking the mainhand (right) weapon, we are free to set the offhand (left) weapon to not use ammo, and only play the reload animation when the main hand goes dry. However, again this causes it's own issue, if the offhand doesn't use ammo and you run out of ammo, it will keep shooting.

 

To fix this, the firing of the left hand will have to be reactive to the main hand, if the main hand doesn't fire for any reason, the offhand won't fire either. (It's bound to it.)

 

 

As I said above, you don't need to give the offhand weapon unlimited ammo if you make it one weapon.

As for reloading, you could probably use an animation similar to E.Y.E.:Divine Cybermancy, where they reload the left gun with the right hand and vice-versa.

You could also introduce a "new item" to replace ammo, this new item would be in your inventory and automatically give you ammo, but the downside could be that it needs to recharge after so many uses, or it could use energy cells and scrap metal.

 

 

Issue 5: Equipping a second weapon

 

This is actually really easy to fix.

 

While looking on youtube I stumbled across a jetpack mod. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37140

 

Now your probably are wondering how exactly does a jetpack have anything to do with duel wielding? Well, while reading through his notes, I saw

The jetpack uses the add-on slot 1

Now this popped an idea into my head.

 

If you can bind a jetpack to an area, why can't you bind a weapon to the other hand. After a bit of searching it turns out someone already thought of this, but, instead of a pistol it was bound to a sword.

 

So, the 2nd weapon would then be bound to a addon slot which is assigned to the left hand.

 

Now on to an example.

 

Pistol : M9 Right.

Pistol : M9 Left.

 

When equipping a pistol, a window would pop up containing a list of all Left/Right weapons in your inventory, and you will have to select both a left and right weapon.

 

This way you won't have an empty hand when trying to play the animations.

 

 

Wrap-up

 

You can only duel wield weapons made for duel wielding.

 

Example : M9 Left/M9 Right

 

You can only duel wield weapons with the same clip size/ammunition type.

 

Example : Laser Pistol x 2

 

The reason for the double ammunition tax when reloading is, you are using two guns, even though one doesn't have to have ammo, you still have to reload, even if it's not actually adding bullets to your offhand your still technically firing. (AKA, You don't get free bullets, pay for both weapons clips -.-)

 

 

As I said above it could be one weapon.

 

Of course whether any of this could be done is dependent on NVSE and GECK's scripting limitations, the chance that a modder(s) is(are) in existence that is(are) capable of these things shows up, and whether or not he/she/they will be willing to spend time to create this.

Edited September 6, 2011 by Unlimitedrevolver